Cerrane
by jessiac
Summary: A girl, her parents and a whole lotta angst. My first Farscape fic. Don't be gentle, be honest! Post BT.


Disclaimer: Farscape does NOT belong to me. Unfortunately.  
  
Archiving: You WANT this????? Why of course, I'm flattered. Just credit it to jessiac please.  
  
For 14 cycles me and my Father had lived a peaceful, boring life on a peaceful, boring planet. Cerrane was the planet we lived on, a place with about as much interest and excitement as a foodcube.  
  
To this end Cerrane had remained ignored by the Peacekeepers and isolated from the rest of the Universe. The Scarran war passed us by, and the Nebari conflict went over our heads. Cerrane had a mixed population, mainly consisting of Sebaceans and Luxans. The only occupation of Cerranes inhabitants was farming, and the occasional Harvest Festival.  
  
My father was not a farmer, and even odder for Cerrane he was a newcomer. He had arrived when I was a baby as a man looking for the quiet life. He was a mechanic who fixed the local farming machines. I had helped him with this since I was old enough to wield a spanner.  
  
We had a small workshop to repair the machines and an even smaller dwelling to live in. It was fortunate we were paid for our duties with food ; there was no room for a plot to grow them - the workshop was built there.  
  
I first saw them on the way back from delivering a repaired part of a harvester to a local farmer. They, a man, a women and two children - a girl and a boy - were standing outside our workshop talking. The man seemed somewhat excited and was acting like a child on his Birthday.  
  
The women seemed slightly more dour, and was earnestly talking to the children, who were nodding solemnly. I was curious to say the least - these were the first newcomers to Cerrane since my father. And they were outside our workshop.  
  
Talking. As I came nearer I saw that what I had assumed them to be wearing - dark cloth clothes - were actually a sort of hard, shiny material that bent for their trousers and their shirts looked impossibly smooth and of one colour.  
  
They also were wearing guns. The only gun I had ever seen was our neighbour's ancient slug-thrower, which they used to shoot small animals for the pot. Somehow I didn't think that the newcomer's guns were for this purpose.  
  
As quickly as possible I walked towards them, I wanted to make sure they were not some sort of mercenary, hired by a jealous mechanic from another suburb angry at my father for stealing his business. I regret to say that even at 14 cycles I still possessed a formidable imagination. The only other mechanic I had heard of was a fat grumpy old women called Furlow, and even she had died several years ago, grumbling to the end over something she called 'Wirremoles'. She and my father had been good friends, and near the end she begged me for mercy - she thought I was someone called 'Aireen'.  
  
As I drew up to their position, the man noticed me and his jaw dropped. I was slightly put out by this, and wondered if something was on my face. I resisted the urge to check. However the man seemed to recover from his temporary lack of jaw muscle and enquired in to whether my father was about. This only heightened my fears, until I realised that even ruthless mercenaries would hesitate to bring their children with them.  
  
I listened attentively to his explanation of his presence.  
  
***********************************************************  
  
Apparently this man's Module, a ship that could fly in space - I heard of these from my father, had broken. He had a rather bumpy landing in a nearby field and was searching for some tools to fix this module. He had asked our neighbours who had told him about my father. As he said this my father appeared. His jaw also hit the floor - I assumed it was because of the shock of seeing newcomers.  
  
I told my father of the families fantastical predicament. I glanced a familiar glint in my father's eyes - a glint which said he could find a way to make a lot from this. Smiling, my father struck up a deal. The man would work for my father and for an arn or two every day he would be allowed to work on his module using my father's tools. He and his family would also be allowed to stay with us. For my father, this seemed unusually generous. The man laughed and said that in that case he'd be here for a weeken at the most.  
  
A monem later, I almost killed his daughter. Not on accident either, though it may have looked like that. I had an intense hatred of both the girl and the boy. They were sickenly sweet and solemn. They had been coddled, told they were hard done by, never forced to what they didn't want. They were soft, unused to hard work. They could fight and read and shoot their parents guns. They patronised me. I hated them.  
  
I told the girl that a near by farmers tractor was a perfect playground. In fact it was a dangerous death trap, with bare live electric wires everywhere. Her father found her, and got her off the tractor. I feigned innocence saying that the girl must have miss heard me - I obviously had said the farmer's tractor was NOT a perfect playground. The man must have been blind or stupid, or both, because he believed me.  
  
The son I also almost killed as well. He was being particularly annoying, looking at me with large blue eyes and asking me in a faux innocent way whether we had any books he could read. Our dwelling was small - his sister, mother and father took up the remaining floor space. He must have seen the only things we had were cooking implements, table and beds. I grabbed his head and was just about to bring it towards a conduit which would have sent a 8000-volt charge through him. Unfortunately his father walked in at that moment and I had to pretend I was looking eye to eye with the boy.  
  
Both children stopped annoying me, and kept out of my way. So at least my abortive homicide attempts brought some good. Meanwhile the man's repair efforts were not going well. He needed an extra tool we did not have, and as no one else on Cerrane had a serviceable spaceship that he could fetch it with, he was getting desperate. It was about this time when I found out why they had been in their module. It was late at night, and I couldn't get any sleep. I heard the man and the women talking.  
  
"Aeryn...."  
  
"No John. We are not giving this up. I am not going to stop looking for our child"  
  
"But the child was taken away over 12 cycles ago Aeryn. Do we want to risk out other children's lives in search for our other child who may not even be alive? How will we find......it. We don't even know whether it's a boy or a girl!"  
  
"I am not discussing this John. Goodnight."  
  
My thoughts at this moment were of relief. Thank the lord that their other child was not around me to annoy me further. If he was anything like his siblings then it was a blessing he was estranged from his parents or dead. This was a half formed thought that hung around until I managed to get to sleep. I sincerely hoped that the man fixed his ship soon. His children although leaving me alone at the moment had probably put my earlier attempts to kill them out of their thick heads. Dismissing them as the foibles of a planet born girl. I don't think that they could conceive that anybody would dislike them enough to kill them, much to their detriment *************************************************************** It had been several months after the man had arrived, and I was worried that he had indeed given up the search for his missing child, and had over ruled his wife over it. Not out of any concern for the missing child was this desire born; it was more from a fervent wish that he would go and take his annoying brats with him.  
  
My father, however, was happy with the arrangement - he had unpaid, skilled labour. Apart from feeding him and his family and providing lodgings, of course. The 'of course' was what annoyed me. The children were being schooled by their parents, and this increased my antagonism to them even more. If it was possible, they looked more smug than ever.  
  
Of course they had been schooled before - at least on how to read and write and defend themselves, but now their mother had decided they should know how to fly. The absurdity of this was obvious - no one on Cerrane had a space worthy ship, if they had then my father could have procured the spare part the man needed to fix his ship - and my father was the only one on Cerrane who could have a spaceship, as he must have arrived on Cerrane some way, and everyone else on Cerrane had born on the planet.  
  
It did not occur to me that my father would have withheld his spaceship from our visitors - why would he? His love of free labour was surely not so great as to deceive the man and his family to staying here. At least I hoped it wasn't. Anyway, there was nowhere for him to keep a ship without me seeing it.  
  
No, the women had charmed her way in to teaching her small demons to fly on a crop duster. A crop duster. Obviously she was soft in the head......or desperately bored. I preferred the former explanation, but had to concede that the latter was more likely. There was nothing to do on Cerrane apart from farm, or fix farming machines, and she did neither. I almost felt sorry for her, but then I remembered she was responsible for bringing the brats in to the world. My pity disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.  
  
*************************************************************** Nearly half a cycle had elapsed since the man and his family had come and I was approaching my 15th cycle. Most young people in Cerrane married at the age of 16, however our next door neighbour's son had proposed and as I was desperate to get away from the house, mainly due to the aforesaid family. I said yes, and arrangements were made for a party. Cerrane's inhabitants were desperate for any sort of amusement, and a marriage was seen as a ripe source of merriment.  
  
My imminent departure from my home was met by indifference by everyone, I had not expected anything more - my father had never been that much interested in me, though we liked each other and were courteous, he never saw me as anything other than an assistant and perhaps a companion. My work was no longer needed as much, as he now had the man to help him. The man seemed to have given up ever going, and had decided that his children should grow up away from the dangers of the universe.  
  
But then everything changed. My father had called me to the workshop; I thought to wish me well. But he had the man's wife with him as well. They were smiling. At me. This was highly unusual; they had detected my dislike of their mis-behaved progeny and were always short with me. My father, unusually for him was looking sheepish. The story he told me was to far- fetched for me even to comprehend.  
  
20 cycles ago my father had lived on a near by planet called Qujaga, working as a technician on a research ship. The planet was mainly made up of water; consequently the base was under the sea. He had been born on the city adjacent to the base to Sabacean migrants searching for a better life. One day as he was working on the transport facilities, an invader alert sounded throughout the base.  
  
A ship had been spotted on the surface of the water. As hardly anybody visited Qujaga, and with the Scarran conflict looming, the native Qujagan's - aliens with split heads - had decided this had to be a prelude to an invasion. Bursting with over-enthusiasm at finally being able to use their fighter jets, Qujaga's defence force saw two sebaceans wearing black leather, obviously from the larger ship, assumed the two were military in origin, and blasted them with the defence beam.  
  
This was a device that divided the 'victims' into small molecules, remembered the molecular structure, and then automatically re-assembled them at the other end. Unfortunately, only flesh and hair was transported, so the 2 arrived naked and dis-orientated.  
  
As soon as they interrogated the pair, they realised their mistake. When they found out the women was pregnant, they were shocked. From the tales that the 2 had told them, if they had a child it would be in mortal danger. The Qujagan's placed a child's safety above all else. Amazed at the two's audacity to even think of bringing a child in to the world when it would be in such danger, they decided to remove the foetus and place the child in a surrogate mother. The child would then be brought up in safety, away from mercenary's who would wish to abduct it.  
  
Needless to say the women was not too pleased at this idea, and struggled immensely. My father, who had just got married, was seen as an ideal candidate to bring up the child. My father was transported to Cerrane with his heavily pregnant wife so he could bring up the child away from the base, where the child's parents knew where the child was. They had heard of the 2's reputation - they had even destroyed a command carrier!  
  
The 2 were released after being told the child was safe and in good hands. My father's wife died in childbirth, and he was devasted. The child grew up oblivious. The child was me.  
  
It would probably be safe to say that after that revelation, I was shocked. Shocked did not even cover my range of emotions at that moment. Temporary jaw dis-function seemed to run in the family, as my jaw was open so wide it was in danger of hitting the ground.  
  
I turned my attention to the man and the women.....my mother and father. They were both smiling, if possible, more widely and more toothily than they had before my fath....my guardian had related the tale to me. I was afraid that they might make some sort of cringingly embarrassing scene, such as launching themselves on to me and proclaiming their undying happiness that their long lost daughter had been returned to them.  
  
While I was mulling over this, my father, my genetic father, came up and knelt beside my chair. It seemed that he decided on the sentimental approach. Of course, I should have known that they were my parents.....the resemblance was so great.....my siblings - they would be so happy that their elder sister had been found......my parents were just so happy.....they should have guessed I was their daughter - didn't I look so much like my mother? The hair....but the eyes were my fathers....they had missed my childhood.....I was a big girl now.....everything was now complete because they had found their first baby...etc.  
  
Through most of this, I wondered whether the man was slightly soft in the head, he had obviously seen my hatred of his child...of my siblings - it hurt me even to think that those two soft, simpering, BLOBS were my closest relatives. Was I like that? Had I ever shown such idiocy as those clots? I scoured my memory frantically for any clue that I had been like my siblings. Now, this seems pathetic. But then.......it was shocking, to find that those you had detested were related to you in the closest way.  
  
But time went on. The man and the women continued for some time in that vein. But nothing could change. My fathers ship had long since been discarded - a reminder of his wife's death, and though my parents tried to dissuade me, I married. And time went on, I helped the man who I regarded as my father in the workshop when I could, and allowed my, mother , to teach her grandchildren to read and write. Who knows? It may prove useful, though I doubt it. They both gave up hope of ever leaving Cerrane, although my siblings managed to fix my fathers module eventually, my mother and father decided to stay on Cerrane for the quiet life.  
  
As far as I can gather, my sister and brother are now a sort of inter- galactic police force, righting wrongs and saving insanely grateful yokels from various terrible fates. My father, predictably, finds this admirable. I have no idea why - after all what help are they? They are making no real difference, they just like to play the hero.  
  
My father and I have reached an....understanding. His wife was long dead, killed by electrocution on that crop duster that she liked to fly - I could have told her the thing was a death trap, but I didn't. She was old, and sorely yearned for the freedom of flight again, even if she had to experience in a dilapidated crop duster. Anyway, she was lost long before that. The drudgery of Cerrane had worn her down, and she rarely smiled.  
  
We are friends. Not good friends, but friends enough to talk companionably, something is often lacking in my conversations with my husband. I believe he is disappointed that I have not followed his children, his other children in to being an inter-galactic hero.  
  
But I am happy working in my dead fath....guardian's workshop. I have no hankerings to go gallivanting off and live the life of a constantly moving 'hero' searching for my next lost soul/s to help and/or rescue.  
  
The life of a farmer, mother, and mechanic is enough for me. I think my father, the one that brought me up, saw his wife's death in me - how could he not? I killed his wife, and he never forgot it.  
  
However, this morning I walked through the door of my workshop. I received a most unpleasant surprise. My father, my genetic one (the one that brought me up being long dead) was stretched out on the floor. His face, contrary to my expectations was not peaceful, nor was it at rest. It was in a rictus of agony. I had no idea what had killed him, and I had no need to know. He was dead.  
  
The initial shock wore off and I thought about my next steps. I remembered something about 'comms'. They could be used over long distances. He had made sure both of his equally dramatic children had one of these 'comms' so that in an emergency they could contact each other. In an emergency only - because the battery in them was as powerful as one ill-equipped workshop could make them.  
  
I seriously debated whether to tell my sycophantic siblings. But their poor rescuees needed some respite from being rescued. I called them.  
  
When they arrived, the atmosphere was frosty. I showed them his body. They had to leave the next day, they requested that I should bury him. I agreed. But I did not bury him. Since they had taken his module he had not flown, and had told me many times how he wished he could.  
  
I decided to cremate him, and I had a small private ceremony, with the grandchild that he was most close to. When she went, I stood there. As I watched his ashes floating away, I felt oddly reflective. At last, he was flying again. I smiled for the first time in many years, and walked away.  
  
Fini.  
  
And an extra addy from the sister:  
  
Why does my sister hate me? It seemed that the moment that I arrived on that forsaken planet, the minute she saw me, she hated me. I tried. God knows I tried. To be nice, to be considerate and polite. It didn't dawn on me that she could possibly hate me - after all what had I done to her? - until she tried to kill me.  
  
My father believed her lie about that tractor. I did for a while too. After all, adults, and she was fourteen cycles, were never wrong. I was consumed in guilt for days, it had been my fault my parents had been so worried about me. I had mis-heard her, obviously, she was an adult, she couldn't be wrong.  
  
It was only after I thought about what had happened, that I realised she must have been lying. When I was supposedly in her care, why did she not raise the alarm sooner when I went missing? Of course she had told me to go on the tractor, told me it was a perfect playground. Her story to my father was that I had not heard her, and she had told me it was not a perfect playground.  
  
How my father could have believed this is beyond the pale. Perhaps he didn't want to think that a 14-cycle old girl could want to kill his daughter.  
  
When I found out she was my sister, I was pleased. Maybe now we could become friends.  
  
But shortly after that she was married. My life improved considerably, I was happier as was my brother. She had left the house, and so had her hate which had permeated our lives.  
  
When she had children of her own, I was happy for her. I smiled at her when ever I saw her. She ignored me.  
  
When I finally left home, with my brother to go in to space, it was the happiest moment of my life, only dimmed by having to say goodbye to my parents.  
  
My brother and I helped one person out of a sticky situation; soon we made it our business to stop the bounty hunter preying on the inhabitants of several planets.  
  
I doubt if she has felt a jot of guilt at the treatment she has given me and my brother. But I, who have done nothing, I wake up at night guilty. We had life easier than her, I could have done something more to help her, I could have....  
  
She was jealous of us, she still is.  
  
I hate her so much I hate my own reflection, because it is so much like hers. I hate her because she makes me guilty, though I have done no wrong.  
  
I hate her because she robbed me of my innocence, my trust and my love.  
  
But most of all I hate her because far from finding hate the most ugliest of emotions, to me it has become the best. The strongest. The most liberating. The most satisfying.  
  
And trust me, her hate is reciprocated. I have nothing to lose, and I hate her. 


End file.
